Rise of the Empires

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Empire of Arkhosia

The great empire of Arkhosia was the Dragonborn‘s greatest achievement: a powerful civilization spanning thousands of miles across the known world. It was also the dragonborn’s greatest downfall, as the great war with the tiefling empire of Bael Turath led both of their civilizations to ruin, a tragedy that both races have not fully recovered from.

Arkhosia was formed from a confederation of seven dragonborn city-states, each ruled by their own dragon lord. Under the leadership of an ancient gold dragon called the Golden One, Arkhosia flourished. Cities grew large and populous, trade goods moved from province to province, and the lands were safe from monster incursions. Great floating citadels patrolled the skies, each holding thousands of armed dragonborn knights on their drake steeds.

There was much devotion to Bahamut amongst both dragon and dragonborn, but the official gods that were worshipped in every Imperial temple were Erathis, Ioun and Kord. Always ever in her brother, Bahamut’s shadow, Tiamat worship was also common, though the Imperial government did it’s best to strike such cults down wherever they appeared.

Many dragonborn given the gift of a wingspan were the nobility of Arkhosia. Such dragonborn attained favor second to that of the dragon lords themselves. To prove that their gift of wingspan is not merely a symbol of status, many such scions (as they were called) went out among the world as adventurers or leaders of the Arkhosian army. Dragonborn bards still sing of such exploits to the present day. Such scions of Arkhosia are incredibly rare now.

Magic also flourished. Wizards, sorcerers, bards, and other students of the arcane studied the Ninefold Path, a system of magic that revolved around the dragonborn’s draconic heritage. The Arkhosian armies were strong too. Each weapon produced for each individual soldier are mastercrafted, as the dragonborn do not believe in mass-production. At the time, a single dragonborn soldier could equal at least five human soldiers.

Alas, contact with the tieflings of Bael Turath was the major catalyst that brought Arkhosia to ruin. The tieflings, under their devil masters, believed the dragonborn to be anathema to Bael Turath’s expansion, and ordered the dragonborn all destroyed. The conflict lasted for nearly a century. Arkhosian land was taken and re-taken by both sides. Great armies clashed, with tends of thousands dying in each battle. The infernal magic used by the tieflings, in addition to the dragon magic, plagued great swaths of land. Cities crumbled and fell, the great floating citadels fell quite literally as the tieflings dispelled the magic keeping each afloat.

When the cries of war fell silent, nothing remained of either Arkhosia or Bael Turath. The Golden One perished in the sacking of the Arkhosian capital of Okarthel. Most of the lands of old Arkhosia and Bael Turath now comprise the Lost Lands, where the unstable magic has both mutated monsters and the residents that dare live there. Both the tiefling and dragonborn races fell into a slow, but steady decline in the centuries to follow. To this day, most dragonborn still long for the return of their own empire. But in the Dark Times, such a task is but only a dream…